Keeping secrets from oneself becomes easier as we age. I’ve
already forgotten what I had for breakfast, and I’m beginning to suspect that Tech
Support Guy and I have some secrets in our past that have nothing to do with computers. Fortunately, our past happened before social media made it possible to publish salacious pictures, so whatever it was I think I remember will remain secret.

Also, I can’t remember where I put the list with all my passwords in it.
Can anybody help me? Bueller? Anyone? NSA?

Tuesday, August 06, 2013

I have a friend who has familial hypercholesterolemia (Cholesterol 356; HDL 67, LDL 268, Triglyceride 179) and cannot
tolerate statins because they cause severe, persistent, acute and chronic pain
in the patient’s trapezius, sternocleidomastoid, levator scapulae, and deltoid
muscles, as well as temporomandibular joint radiating into the skull and down
the patient’s arms. While always experiencing generalized soreness and aches in
neck, shoulders and arms, about once a year a bad thing happens: my friend
experiences a generalized muscle spasm in one or more of these muscles that can
last for days at a time. This last time the spasm lasted for every minute of 26
days and nights - which, apart from making the patient cranky, kept them from
sleeping without serious meds - which, apart from creating a serious dependence
on hydrocodone, made the patient psychotic from sleep deprivation – and which,
apart from availing themselves of their health insurance, did nothing to
relieve my friend’s dreadful pain.

Wait, maybe since my friend and I are not medical
professionals and thus cannot possibly understand such big words it would be
better for me to describe my friend’s neck pain using some comparisons to
things regular people might understand. The muscle spasms were to a stiff neck
as an ax buried 2 inches deep into the back of the neck at the base of the
skull is to a gentle tap. Trying to relive the spasms by massage was like
rubbing a bag of doorknobs, and as about as successful. The headache endured
24/7 was to a pressure headache as being kicked simultaneously and repeatedly
behind each ear by two angry kangaroos is to a gentle breeze.

Finally, I will resort to a somewhat non-technical word that
best summarizes the quality of health “care” that my friend has not received:
compassionate.

Fortunately, during the past month while being shuffled on
the merry-go-around of referral to no less than 7 specialists, up to and
including psychiatrists who inquired about whether the patient was hearing
voices, and while being denied the prescription muscle relaxants that have
controlled this pain for 25 years, the muscle spasm finally subsided. While
still experiencing some sleep disturbance related to weaning off the
hydrocodone, my friend has regained the will to live.

Local Harvest

Eat Locally

Just Say No

Weeping Daffodil-20 Sore

My new name under Kurt Vonnegut's Lonesome No More!

"As I said in my speech, your new middle name would consist of a noun, the name of a flower or fruit or nut or vegetable or legume, or a bird or a reptile or a fish, or a mollusk, or a gem or a mineral or a chemical element -- connected by a hyphen to a number between one and twenty."
-- Slapstick, Kurt Vonnegut
Lonesome No More